BEIJING — Curling is often called chess on ice. Thursday night, it was more like a math problem on ice for John Shuster and his teammates.
The U.S. men trailed Great Britain 5-4 after five ends in an Olympic semifinal. In the sixth end, Shuster had a chance to score only one point, so he threw away his last stone to retain control of the hammer, the final shot of the end. The strategy was to keep control of the hammer until Team Shuster could set up an opportunity for multiple points.
The seventh end played out the same way. So did the eighth. Finally, the Brits' precision backed Team Shuster into a corner it couldn't escape, handing Great Britain an 8-4 victory and ending the United States' chances of repeating as Olympic champion.
